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The rest of the journey
It is hard to tell much exciting news of queuing, handing over passports and boarding passes, sitting on an aeroplane, more queuing, security checks another aeroplane and immigration. Unlike our first Strode trip to India the journey out was in most ways uneventful. I could comment on the person who left a pair of scissors in their hand luggage, or the one who had dropped an extra bottle of hand sanitizer in the top pocket of their jacket, or the student whose name was so long it hadn't fitted on her ticket for check-in but the truth was we had a comparatively uneventful trip - even all the luggage arrived without hiccup.
We had one little moment at Abi Dhabi airport after security when a called of nature had divided some of the girls from the others. 5 of us we left checked in and waiting on an empty bus to drive around the airport whilst the final passenger (not one of our group) was located. I found myself reminded of the much more mad hurtle through Mombai airport from last time we came, fortunately reminded with the kind of relief that we hadn't gone through that again.
I have concluded that there must be an award given to the member of staff at Kolkata Airport who can process the visas at immigration the slowest. It has to be said that at 3am after almost 24hours solid travelling it can be a little tedious especially as I was absolutely determined to be the last one through in case of hiccups with the strange questions they can be prone to ask unsuspecting visitors to the country.
It was a delight to be greeted by Sairul and Suraj who had been dragged out of bed to the airport especially to help load our immense amount of luggage on and off the bus. And, when we arrived at Satyen Park they unloaded the luggage from the bus to a truck as the bus couldn't get round the tight bends to the accommodation. Bizarrely it was not the usual onslaught of sound that you expect when you arrive in Kolkata, and the traffic was moving - both things can be attributed to the early hour of our arrival.
Creeping into our accommodation Anup took great delight in showing us the 3 new toilet/shower room kitchens that have been fitted in time for our arrival, much needed for 9 females in two rooms! There won't be much cat swinging and we may need to do a little bit of coordinated suitcase opening as there simply isn't enough floor space for us all to open our cases at the same time, and due to mosquito nets and bunk beds we can't just pop our cases on our beds to open.
Sleep time was between 5.30am and 12.30pm then time to get ready to go to the school.
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